{"id":13453,"date":"2014-08-08T11:05:52","date_gmt":"2014-08-08T18:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=13453"},"modified":"2014-08-08T11:10:05","modified_gmt":"2014-08-08T18:10:05","slug":"hershey-felder-stages-a-near-perfect-chopin-bio-recital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/hershey-felder-stages-a-near-perfect-chopin-bio-recital\/","title":{"rendered":"Hershey Felder stages a near-perfect Chopin bio, recital"},"content":{"rendered":"

Woody’s [rating:5]<\/span><\/p>\n

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Hershey Felder portrays \u201cMonsieur Chopin\u201d in one-man show at the Berkeley Rep. Photo by John Zich.<\/p>\n

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Pianist-actor Hershey Felder stars in a musical bio, \u201cMonsieur Chopin.\u201d Photo by John Zich.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

When I watched him transform into George Gershwin in a one-man Berkeley Rep show in June 2013, I\u2019d never heard of Hershey Felder.<\/p>\n

Still, I reveled in his virtuosity as a pianist, actor and writer.<\/p>\n

And wanted more.<\/p>\n

When last fall I witnessed his puissant direction of Mona Golabek as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor in \u201cThe Pianist of Willesden Lane,\u201d I basked in another of his talents.<\/p>\n

I craved more.<\/p>\n

And when I saw him morph into conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein in June of this year\u2019s \u201cMaestro\u201d musical bio, I couldn\u2019t wait for what came next.<\/p>\n

Next is now.<\/p>\n

\u201cMonsieur Chopin,\u201d also a solo show, is a bio and concert predictably more romantic than the others \u2014 musically, at least.<\/p>\n

Some of Fryderyk Chopin\u2019s melodies will be as instantly recognizable by classical music buffs as quarterback Colin Kaepernick\u2019s tattoos would be to 49er fans.<\/p>\n

But director Joel Zwick, who guided the Gershwin and Bernstein shows as well as the film \u201cMy Big Fat Greek Wedding,\u201d proficiently has the keyboardist-playwright intersperse less familiar strains.<\/p>\n

\u201cHershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin,\u201d which runs at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre through Aug. 10, transports audiences to the 1848 Paris salon of the \u201cPolish poet of the piano.\u201d<\/p>\n

There he hunkers down with an enigmatic, volatile author, George Sand, and entertains painter Eugene Delacroix, a sometimes bff.<\/p>\n

And there, I, and an audience that leapt to its collective feet at the two-hour opening night\u2019s conclusion, could appreciate Felder\u2019s piano dexterity and a characterization that overcomes a heavy accent and feels authentic.<\/p>\n

His Steinway tones range from ultra-soft to thunderous.<\/p>\n

He nimbly plays all or parts of more than a dozen pieces, including three Polonaises (emphasizing their \u201crise to glory\u201d), a handful of preludes and nocturnes, \u201cMazurka in A-Flat Major, Opus 50 No. 2,\u201d \u201cMarche Fun\u00e9bre, Opus 35\u201d and \u201cRomanza, E-Minor Concerto.\u201d<\/p>\n

Credit goes to lighting designer Richard Norwood for creating instant mood changes, and scenic designer for fashioning a period setting with just an upholstered chair, end tables, mirror and trinket-laden mantle.<\/p>\n

Norwood\u2019s pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance, however, is a gilded frame that borders the stage and heightens what occurs within: historic legitimacy, histrionic biography.<\/p>\n

Felder injects heaps of humor, from the play\u2019s get-go to the end of a 30-minute coda with the house lights on (in which he quick-wittedly answers questions from the crowd in character, cleverly improvising occasional anachronistic jests about cell phones and other today-technology).<\/p>\n

He\u2019s especially laugh-inducing when Chopin, a child prodigy and adult genius who died prematurely at age 39, sneers at Franz Liszt\u2019s piano playing and works (\u201cscales and arpeggios and so much noise\u201d).<\/p>\n

But pathos is even more prevalent.<\/p>\n

From the performer\u2019s description of the death of Emilia, Chopin\u2019s sister, to the composer\u2019s frequent sidekick, melancholia (in modern terms, depression).<\/p>\n

And from his obsessive hand-washing to his semi-romantic proclivities (focusing on an eight-year relationship with the pseudonymous Sand, a woman he first encounters dressed in man\u2019s clothing and smoking a cigar).<\/p>\n

The playwright\u2019s major conceit is to address the audience as if it were a Chopin class, a theatrical device that\u2019s slightly awkward.<\/p>\n

But some of his teaching moments are pithy and poetic:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must dust the keys with your fingers as if you were dusting them with your breath.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cForget your lunatic family and play as if you are playing for God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Felder, who\u2019s been a scholar-in-residence at Harvard\u2019s department of music and is married to Kim Campbell, former Canadian prime minister, apparently cannibalized \u201cMonsieur Chopin\u201d from his own, original three-performer construct, \u201cRomantique,\u201d first performed 11 years ago and skewered by critics.<\/p>\n

He obviously rewrote, fixed and honed it.<\/p>\n

And salvaged it.<\/p>\n

So much so that, nine years after its debut, he\u2019s performed \u201cChopin\u201d more than 800 times to more than 250,000 theatergoers.<\/p>\n

So much so that now it\u2019s become a masterwork, a near-perfect integration of recital and biography.<\/p>\n

\u201cHershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin\u201d plays at the Berkeley Rep\u2019s Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley, through Aug. 10 and then returns for encore performances Sept. 16-21. Night shows<\/em>, 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Sundays; matinees, 2 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $14.50 to $87, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.<\/em><\/p>\n

You can contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woody’s [rating:5] When I watched him transform into George Gershwin in a one-man Berkeley Rep show in June 2013, I\u2019d never heard of Hershey Felder. Still, I reveled in his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"